Hong Kong Part 2

Our second day in Hong Kong we decided to get up early and work out (ambitious I know), then we had a wonderful breakfast at the Intercontinental club lounge.  They have a whole buffet of food and you can also order an omelet, fresh waffles or french toast.  After breakfast we went down to the trip planning desk in the lobby (yes our hotel was awesome) where we purchased big bus tickets to tour all of Hong Kong.  I know what you are thinking if you read my Shanghai Big Bus post you know how I thought it was terrible, but in general I really love big bus.  I think it is a great way to see the city and get a feel for the layout and spots you want to visit.  Included in our big bus ticket was a ticket on the tram to the peak overlooking the city as well as a boat ride, which unfortunately it started POURING rain so we skipped.

We caught the ferry to the Hong Kong side so we could take the red bus line, which was a tour of all of the major Hong Kong Island spots, including the tram and shopping destinations.  We got on the bus and met a really nice family from Wisconsin who had just been in Guangzhou adopting a little chinese girl.  They had their son with them as well and had decided to pick her up and then tour China for two weeks.  They were such a sweet family.  The little girl they adopted had a cleft pallet so they explained to us how it was difficult to learn how to feed her but that she was at the age where she could show them how (she was probably almost a year old).  They had a series of surgeries planned as soon as they got home so that they could get it over with fast and she could live a normal happy life.  Joel and I were both very touched by them, it was the kind of encounter that makes you want to be a better person, and definitely contemplate adopting later in life.

After we took the bus for quite some time we got off to take the tram up to the top of the peak.  The tram was a little scary, straight up the mountain on a wire but was totally worth it.  The view going up was very cool, the buildings you pass almost look like they are angled because you are leaning so far back from the gravity of going straight up the mountain.  When we got to the top, you enter into a mall with lots of souvenir shops and restaurants.  If you take like 5 or 6 escalators you can get to the roof top to see The View.  When we were up there the view was clear and you could see both sides of Hong Kong but by the time we were done and had taken the tram back down the clouds were coming in and it started raining.  My dad had warned us that when it rains in Hong Kong it really rains.  He wasn't kidding.  I thought we were going to be washed away!  Our next stop on the bus tour was going to be walking around shopping but because of the rain we decided to head back to the hotel.  At this point it was already 5pm so we thought by the time we would get back to the hotel we could eat an early dinner and wait out the rain.

We sat in the lounge and had food and my nightly champagne and watched the rain through the window.  We sat there for so long, until about 9pm when, fortified by our drinks, we decided we would put on our rain gear, brave the rain and take a walk.  We thought we could walk to the men's market again and wander around.  We walked for about an hour and a half, got totally lost and never found it again.  Lol, oh well.  We finally gave up, called it a night and caught a cab back to the room to go to bed.



 Click here if you missed part 1